The shadows of the western poplars were longer now, crawling across the cemetery grass to clutch at Adam’s feet. Around him, the white concrete grave markers shone marigold-yellow in the sinking sun. When the breeze picked up, the flags at the cemetery entrance rippled and snapped, and everywhere he looked, Adam saw the scattered fluttering of swaying flowers and brightly colored ribbons gathered and ruched onto board, cheap substitutes for flower arrangements.

Six thirty, almost. No, gone half past six.

Adam scanned the grounds. No one.

He was alone. Where was the guy?

Adam was exactly where he was supposed to wait: in the section where they buried the kids.

He looked around him. The graves snuggled close together, as if they thought the children could keep each other warm in the cold ground. They seemed so busy to him, so creepily full of life. Some graves had statuettes of angels or kittens, others rusting toy cars, or grubby stuffed animals ravaged by the exposure. The sun bleached the pebbles white, and withered the weeds that crept through them. There was a lot of color—vibrant red roses, pots of yellow daisies, bouquets of pink zinnias—and as the wind blew, dozens of silver Mylar whirligigs spun wildly, splintering back the light as the wind smothered the sound.

Adam shivered, despite himself.

Where was his informant?

He’d spent the morning visiting two farms. He’d been unwelcome at both, but the overseer at Endicott had been particularly unpleasant, unpleasant enough for Adam to add him to his list of suspicious estates.

He’d cycled back to Bel Arbre, reaching the main drag hot and sticky—and increasingly not sure he was doing the right thing. In the line at the taco stand, Adam had the eerie impression that the other customers—farmhands, mostly—shrank back from him, as if to stand next to him meant certain death. He felt like the doomed new sheriff in a western, arriving at the lawless frontier town only to be promptly shot so the real hero can emerge.

The rush of high-minded bravado had passed, and Adam was left with his own private stash of anxiety and paranoia. No one actually left the line; but no one was talking, and at that shack, the chatter had always been so animated that it had bugged him.

The line crawled forward, each second sticking to the last, an age between each step, each order taking a lifetime to utter, an eternity to prepare.

Adam was flooded with thoughts of home, where his life was. The feel of cool rain on his face as he walked home up Broadway late at night, the smell of rich, pretty Columbia girls who dressed like they really cared—it all became overwhelming, heartbreaking. Standing in the taco shack line, he realized he’d had enough. How the fuck had he got all tangled up in this in the first place? It was absurd: trying to impress a girl, he’d ended up part of an investigation into mass murder…

It was time to go home.

He pulled out his cell. His mom would pay for the ticket—she’d called three times since the news broke on TV, leaving pitiful messages about how much she wanted him home. Ka-fucking-CHING.

The red message light was winking; he played it back. Not his mother, but the detective he’d talked to last night, more questions, blah blah blah. Fuck, he’d given them everything he knew.

Well, on his way home, he’d stop in at the sheriff’s office substation and talk with them again. One last time.

And then everything had changed.

Adam had stopped a block from his street to take a bite of his taco when a small, white Mitsubishi mini-pickup truck pulled up next to him. Adam recognized the blue insignia on the hood, and nodded warily.

The driver was a small, gaunt Mexican with a graying goatee, face partly hidden under the stiff bill of his Grulla Blanca baseball cap. He spoke in heavily accented English.

“We will help you. Okay? We tell you, you go to police, okay…?”

Adam nodded, his heart suddenly pounding.

“Okay, I go to police. What can you tell me?”

“Not here. Not good place. Meet me at six hours, in the…pantéon? En el cementerio?”

The cemetery. Adam shook his head, uncertain. “Six hours? Or six o’clock?” He pointed at his watch. “Que hora?”

The man nodded and said, “A las seis.” Six p.m.

“Okay. A las seis. Pero, donde en el cementerio?”

The man thought for a second, then said, “En las tumbas de los niños.”

“Okay. A las seis.”

And with that, the pickup accelerated and disappeared down the end of the street.

Adam went home, showered, started to pack, then called the sheriff’s office; he would tell the detective what was happening, ask him to meet at the cemetery at six thirty—any sooner, and he’d spook the informant. But the detective was out, so Adam left a message on his voice mail.

As he hung up, the feeling came back: he shouldn’t have meddled. This wasn’t his business. The police could take care of it.

But Adam had no choice. He’d left his house at a quarter to six; it took him ten minutes to reach the cemetery. And now the man was nowhere to be seen.

He wasn’t going to show. He was already more than a half hour late.

Adam relaxed, only then realizing how tense he’d been.

The detective would be there soon. He’d tell him to look for an older Mexican man with a gray goatee at La Grulla Blanca, suggest he offer the guy immunity or something so he could testify.

Leaving Adam out of it.

He walked back to his bike. It was cooler now—funny to think of seventy-five degrees as “cool”—and the trees at the far end of the cemetery were deeply shadowed.

And he was going home.

He pedaled toward the exit, picking up speed, faster and faster, and soon his bike was flying across the tarmac, the chain a smooth whir under his pumping feet, heading toward his cottage, then to Miami, then home to New York.

And then the pickup truck slipped into the cemetery through the western gate—Adam’s gate—turning onto the track in front of him with a dry crunch of gravel.